Misconduct Hearing Underway for Prosecutor in Anti-Trump-Protest Cases

The Washington Post

11:17 JST, March 13, 2025

A federal prosecutor accused of manipulating evidence alongside a D.C. police detective in an apparent attempt to convict anti-Trump demonstrators of rioting in the nation’s capital was overwhelmed by an avalanche of cases brought over widespread disruption pegged to Donald Trump’s 2017 inauguration, her lawyers said Tuesday.

In the opening day of her misconduct case tried by prosecutors with D.C.’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel, defense lawyers for Jennifer Kerkhoff Muyskens painted a picture of an office in disarray as she sought to lead the prosecution of more than 200 cases stemming from mass arrests made over several chaotic hours in the District.

Trump supporters and protesters clashed throughout the day at several locations, with demonstrations escalating into rioting that authorities estimate caused about $100,000 in property damage across 16 blocks downtown. But the sweeping arrests yielded fewer than two dozen convictions. Prosecutors allege that as the cases fell apart, Kerkhoff Muyskens withheld evidence from defense attorneys, worked with veteran D.C. police officer Gregg Pemberton to edit videos of people planning the protests, and later misrepresented the matter to D.C. Superior Court judges.

Kerkhoff Muyskens’s defenders denied she manipulated the videos or failed to hand over evidence. But what they largely characterized as mishaps stemming from overwork and overreliance on the guidance of supervisors, prosecutors on Tuesday cast as a deliberate effort to alter material that was central to the government’s case against the demonstrators.

The excised video showed organizers discussing nonviolence, according to court filings, which defense lawyers could have used to undercut claims that protesters conspired to foment unrest as Trump was sworn in as president. Prosecutors also allege Kerkhoff Muyskens initially hid that the material came from Project Veritas, a conservative activist group that uses secret recordings to target the mainstream news media and left-leaning groups.

“She understood Project Veritas’s bias and decided then to conceal Veritas’s involvement,” the panel’s lead prosecutor, Sean O’Brien, told the three-person disciplinary hearing panel during his opening statements. “She made repeated false statements and intentionally suppressed information, which is evidence of her guilt. She made a conscious decision not to disclose.”

The cases fell apart. Just 21 defendants pleaded guilty before trial, and the D.C. government agreed to pay $1.6 million to settle two lawsuits stemming from the treatment of protesters.

Kerkhoff Muyskens faces a range of penalties, including disbarment, if the panel finds she engaged in professional misconduct. She left the U.S. attorney’s office shortly after the cases were resolved after spending 18 years with the office, said one of her attorneys, Adam Hoffinger. She no longer practices law. On Tuesday and Wednesday, she sat among her attorneys, scribbling on a notepad during the proceedings. She is not facing any criminal charges. Her attorneys told the panel she also plans to testify later in the hearings.

Hoffinger in opening statements previewed what the panel is likely to hear: The former prosecutor and her family received death threats, and a deputy U.S. marshal had to escort her to and from her home. She was navigating direction from a judge to be judicious in the volume of material she delivered to defense lawyers so close to trial and guidance from supervisors about what should be disclosed.

“This case was endlessly and hopelessly complicated, with no blueprint or road map with multiple moving parts. The office was grossly understaffed on the case, and all of this was on the shoulder of Mrs. Muyskens,” her attorney told the panel.

Pemberton, who worked as the lead detective on the cases, now serves as the head of the D.C. police Union. He was not present at the hearing and did not return requests for comment after the day’s proceedings.

The first case dismissals came in 2018, after Superior Court Judge Robert E. Morin determined that Kerkhoff Muyskens and her office misrepresented information and withheld evidence from the defense. During hearings at the time, she repeatedly told the judges and defense attorneys that her office possessed only one video of a protest-planning meeting, secretly recorded by Project Veritas. Morin later issued a ruling saying that he did not believe Kerkhoff Muyskens purposefully withheld evidence.

But days later, the U.S. attorney’s office, under then-U.S. Attorney and appointee Jessie K. Liu, acknowledged in an email to defense attorneys that 69 undercover videos or audio recordings existed. Prosecutors then dismissed cases against seven defendants.

Prosecutors are obligated by law to share their evidence with defense lawyers at the earliest possible time, even if that evidence weakens their case. They also must provide information about any potential credibility issues associated with evidence, including information about potential bias of anyone who provides evidence.

The board’s first witness, D.C. defense attorney Sara Kropf, who represented one of the protesters who was acquitted, testified how defense attorneys were not initially told that Project Veritas had recorded the videos. Attorneys also did not know that video footage existed of participants discussing at planning meetings how to avoid violence and outlining how to demonstrate peacefully, she said.

“At the time of the trial, we believed no other videos existed,” Kropf said. “We did not have the opportunity to examine the government’s file. We relied on what the prosecutors said.”

Defense attorneys for the hundreds of protesters argued that their clients were peacefully protesting during Trump’s first inauguration. But prosecutors and police officers accused some of smashing windows and using “black bloc” tactics – wearing dark clothing and hiding their faces by wearing masks and goggles as they upended downtown D.C. on Jan. 20, 2017.

The disturbance, also called DisruptJ20, included advocates of Black Lives Matter, Trade Justice and the Future is Feminist, among others, O’Brien told the board.

In all, 234 people were charged in connection with the Inauguration Day disturbances. Before trial, 21 individuals pleaded guilty.

The first trial in 2017 resulted in acquittals for all six defendants after jurors said they found no evidence that the six were personally involved in the destruction. Then in 2018 and 2019, prosecutors dismissed the remaining cases.

Alexei Wood, who was acquitted in the first round of trials, sat in the audience at Tuesday’s hearing.

“It is very nerve-racking to be here. But I had to come,” Wood said. “I wanted to see her face again. She deserves all of this. She tried to ruin our lives.”